A new sample chamber for hybrid detection of scattering and fluorescence, using synchrotron radiation in the soft x-ray and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) spectral range

Abstract

Smaller and more complex nanostructures in the semiconductor industry require a constant upgrade of accompanying metrological methods and equipment. A central task for nanometrology is the precise determination of structural features of gratings in the nanometer range as well as their elemental composition. Scatterometry and x-ray fluorescence in the soft x-ray and extreme ultraviolet spectral ranges are ideally suited to this task. We here present a new, compact measurement chamber that can simultaneously detect the elastically scattered signal and the fluorescence, originating from nanoscale grating samples. Its geometry enables detecting scattered intensity over a wide angular range with a variable angle of incidence. We show first experiments on industry-relevant test structures from the commissioning process alongside the specifications of the setup, located at PTB’s soft x-ray radiometry beamline at the synchrotron radiation facility BESSY II in Berlin.